and so did exactly what she was angling for.

"It's Heaven to feel your embrace," she murmured. "Dear--dearest
Lancelot. Oh, if you only knew how I've longed and prayed we might meet!
I never thought to see you again, and here, without a moment's warning,
I'm face to face with you. Can you wonder I'm unable to control myself?
I know it's folly--weakness--anything you like to call it. I don't care.
I love you and that's all I know. Kiss me, Lancelot!"

The unhappy Vane was at his wits' end. The more he tried to release
himself the closer she clung to him. Who seeing them could doubt that
they were ardent lovers? Sally's last words were uttered in a tone of
reckless passion, partly stimulated, partly real. She had raised her
voice purposely. She knew its penetrating accents would reach the ears
for which the loving words were really intended. She saw Lavinia who was
hastening towards them stop suddenly, then her figure swayed slightly,
her head bent forward, and in a few moments there was hesitation.
Finally she wheeled round and fled.

Sally Salisbury had secured a complete victory so far as her rival was
concerned, but she had not won Lancelot Vane. She did not delude herself
into the belief that she had, but her triumph would come.

Vane succeeded in wrenching himself free, but not for some minutes. On
one excuse or another she detained him and it was only on his promising
to meet her the following night at Spring Gardens that he managed to
make his escape. It was too late. In vain he waited for Lavinia, but she
came not. He was plunged in the depths of disappointment.

"She never meant to keep her word," he muttered savagely and strode
along the path towards St. James's Palace, hoping against hope that he
might chance to meet her.

Lancelot Vane was not the only man in the park at that moment who was
angered at Lavinia's non-appearance. When Vane was trying to repel
Sally's embarrassing caresses a coach stopped on the western side of the
Park at the point nearest to Rosamond's Pond. The coach could have been
driven into the Park itself, but this could not be done without the
King's permission. Two men got out and walked rapidly to the pond.

"A quarter past seven," said one drawing his watch from his fob. "The
time of meeting, Rofflash, you say was seven."

"Aye, and they'll be punctual to the minute, I'll swear."

"Then we ought to find the turtle doves billing and cooing. A thousand
pities we couldn't get